YORK is enjoying a level of prosperity that many cities must envy. Unemployment is low, inward investment is high. We can look ahead with confidence.

So it may strike some as odd that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation today called for a city-wide regeneration policy. Surely York has regenerated - job done?

That, unfortunately, is wishful thinking. Residents of York's most deprived areas have still to share in the spoils of the success story. And however secure the future seems now, the ill winds of a global financial downturn could all too easily blow the local economy off course.

It was only five years ago that York's prospects looked grim. The Holgate Road carriageworks, a mainstay of wealth and employment for more than a century, finally shut down. Hundreds of jobs were lost.

That crisis kick-started the York Regeneration Partnership (YRP). Councils, housing associations and other groups came together to try to fill the vacuum left by ABB.

The results were startling. Thrall Europa relocated on Holgate Road, beginning a new era of train-building on the site. More jobs were created via the CPP call centre. An employment advice centre and community forum were set up to help the areas worst hit by the closure.

The YRP demonstrated how much could be done if disparate agencies worked together for the common good of the city. Another partnership successfully launched the Science City initiative.

Now the regeneration cash has run out. But the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is right to say this should not be the end of the story.

Its report revealed that a lack of a long-term regeneration strategy has held back improvements to York's most deprived neighbourhoods.

Such a strategy is needed to address the city's economic weaknesses. We have thriving retail and tourist sectors, but manufacturing industry remains vulnerable. York's status as a railway city also leaves it exposed to any restructuring of that industry.

So we must do as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recommends. A strong city never stops regenerating itself.